Sanibel shell artist Pam Rambo asked Lee County commissioners on Tuesday to sit down and talk about settling her lawsuit over ownership of the Shell Love Bug, then became emotional when a commissioner urged her to drop the suit.

The Shell Love Bug is the Volkswagen Beetle covered in a shell sculpture design commissioned by Lee County as a promotional vehicle last year. Rambo filed the suit claiming the county reneged on a promise to give her the vehicle after it was used to promote National Seashell Day.

Rambo became emotional after commissioners and the county attorney likened her creation to surplus county vehicles being sold off at auction, and Commissioner Brian Hamman suggested she drop the suit and try to buy it at auction.

"I just want to say, this is not a fleet vehicle," Rambo said, her voice quivering. "This is my art, it's no longer a fleet vehicle. It's a sculpture, this is my artwork, it means nothing to you — it means everything to me."

It was Rambo's second trip to the podium to address the issue at Tuesday's commission meeting.

She first spoke to offer to sit with any commission member to reach a compromise; taking up Commissioner Frank Mann on a suggestion he made two weeks ago that the county try to settle with Rambo and her company, Kirby Rambo Collections, which filed the federal lawsuit.

"I am willing to meet with you or another commissioner, one on one, with no attorneys; I am willing to go to mediation with you, with our attorneys," Rambo said. "I am willing to resolve this simply by exchanging offers."

Her plea for a settlement was the first public comment she has made since the case was filed.

Many lawyers try to keep clients from making public statements about on-going litigation, but Naples attorney Joseph Coleman said he knew she was going to speak in response to Mann's plea earlier this month to work out a settlement.

"Our client thought it important to convey to the county that she was in large part in agreement with Mr. Mann's statements," Coleman said. "This is not just some hobby to her or some fleeting interest, this really is her life, it is her life in shells."

Coleman said Rambo has made three settlement offers and received one answer.

Mann wasn't buying the explanation or the decision to continue litigation.

"I think you're giving me fake law," Mann said. "I cannot believe that if three of us directed you to find a way to convey this vehicle and provide justification by some resolution to this lady that you couldn't come up with something that would work," Mann said.

"I will never, as county attorney, recommend that this board take an action in contravention of state law," Wesch said. "I would not recommend it."

The county attorney told the commission it had the right to speak publicly and to speak with Rambo about settlement, but cautioned against it.

"There is no gag order in effect," Wesch said. "I would just point to the age-old phrase that what you say may be used against you, and you may end up as a witness in litigation as we go forward."

Lee taxpayers are funding outside lawyers to handle the suit. Wesch said it is because of the complexities of federal copyright law, and lack of experience that county staff attorneys have in that area of the law.

The first lawyer hired by the county, William Noonan of Fort Myers, was paid $250 per hour. He billed $12,757 before withdrawing. The county's new firm, Fee and Jefferies of Tampa will be paid $375 per hour.

Fee and Jefferies has until the middle of next month to file the county's official answer. A county bid to have the case thrown out was rejected by a U.S. District judge.